When someone is engaging in compulsive or excessive behaviors, it becomes clear that they are trying to satisfy their desire for the behavior. They may be seeking pleasure from the activity, or the feeling the activity produces.
They may feel obligated to keep performing the behavior or risk losing important relationships or things they want.
These can include eating too much food, exercising excessively, taking unnecessary risks with safety (like driving while intoxicated), and grooming or clipping your hair beyond what’s natural. It could also include self-harm like pinching yourself or sticking your fingers in your mouth.
This isn’t normal weight regulation, and these behaviors are often linked together. People who engage in one type of eating disorder usually suffer from others as well.
There are three main types of eating disorders. You probably know about dieting, but there are two other categories people sometimes fall into: compulsive overfeeding and hyperphagia. Let’s look at each one.
Dieting — typically referred to as “binge eating” or “overeating” – is when you eat more than you need to fulfill your hunger, but you don’t eat enough overall calories to meet your nutritional needs.
Many people begin diets early in life, particularly during times of emotional stress. Unfortunately, some teens develop eating disorders due to media influence and messages we get around body image.
Eating too much
“Eating too much” is usually referred to as obesity, but this definition of overeating is very broad. It can also be characterized as compulsive eating or bingeing.
Some examples include:
Thoroughly chewing food every time you eat it
Having large portions due to feelings of hunger being gone
Self-starving in order to avoid eating something
Feeling hungry but going through significant effort to not eat
Tipping the scales towards overweight/obese because you feel you have to consume lots of food to stay alive
Certain foods that you enjoy consuming too much of
If you notice yourself in any of these situations, it may be helpful to ask yourself why you are doing it. Is it to make you feel better about yourself? To distract from other things in your life? Because you think you should eat such quantities of food? Or maybe you just like to eat!
All of these reasons are symptoms of disordered eating. While having healthy diet habits is important, limiting how much you eat is an essential part of treating your disorder.
There is help available for those who struggle with eating disorders. Depending on what type of eating problem you have, there are different treatments available.
This could be individual counseling, group therapy, mindfulness practices, nutritional coaching, or weight loss programs.
Eating based on emotional state
A common behavior in people with eating disorders is called emotion-based or emotional eating. This happens when you eat food because you are feeling stressed, angry, depressed, or excited.
When you feel hungry, your body automatically starts to look for ways it can be fed. It looks into its stores of glucose and protein to find foods it can use to make energy, and it may also begin to burn extra fat for more calories.
However, during this process, the brain does not get the message that there is no longer enough appetite so it keeps asking for food even though your stomach is empty.
This can continue until you eventually consume too much food which will only make you feel worse. You might then need to go back and start feeding yourself again, which takes time and effort.
Emotion-eating can become an uncontrollable habit if it’s done frequently.
Hitting your body weight
A common feature of eating disorders is hitting your Body Mass Index (BMI) to determine if you are overweight. This can be done by either under-eating or over-eating so that you get rid of most of your normal weight.
Some people with anorexia nervosa even eat very little food as they feel their bodies do not need enough nutrition. Others may overeat to make up for how much they ate before, making them weigh more than they should.
People with binge eating disorder will eat large amounts of food quickly, which could include foods that are beyond the recommended daily amount. They may also eat several small meals instead of one big meal, or no food at all during certain times of the day.
Emotional eating
Sometimes, for no apparent reason, you will find yourself craving or needing food to make you feel better. You may be hungry, but instead of grabbing something to eat, you choose to put some snacks that you have in your car or house.
This is called emotional eating. It can be due to stress, anxiety, anger, fear, or sadness.
Drinking alcohol or taking illegal drugs can also contribute to emotional eating as it makes people feel relaxed or drunk/high.
When these things are not needed to relax you, they can actually cause weight gain because you don’t want to eat foods to calm down-you’re feeding your body more than it needs!
It’s important to recognize emotional eating for what it is – poor diet choice – and try to avoid it if possible.
If you need to eat to deal with an underlying feeling, do so, then go back onto healthier habits afterwards.
Food addiction
There is a tendency to describe people who engage in compulsive eating behaviors as “addicted” to food. While this may be an appropriate way to refer to someone with very serious, clinically diagnosed eating disorder such as binge-eating disorder or obesity, using the term “food addiction” can often trivialize the experience of those who consume large amounts of foods frequently.
People become addicted to things including drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, shopping, entertainment, and food. For some individuals, it seems that their appetite grows stronger and more frequent in relation to what they eat while others feel hungry less frequently but want larger quantities of food.
There are several theories about why someone might develop food addictions. According EvidenceBasedMedicine.org, one theory states that “[…] eating too much occurs when your body senses a decrease in internal chemical levels. When you overconsume these chemicals, they build up to low levels, which stimulates hunger.”
This idea applies to both overweight people and people with eating disorders. With both groups, there is no definitive cause so researchers look into other reasons. These include genetics, stress, and exposure to diets or heavy use of foods before.
Binge eating
When you binge eat, you consume an abnormally large amount of food within a short period of time. Most people define binging as eating way more than needed to satisfy your appetite, but some go one step further and say that it is also consumed quickly.
When you overeat, you may feel out of control. You can’t seem to stop eating even though you are already full. This can make you feel sick and tired due to all of the empty calories you ingest.
Binge eating can be part of normal weight gain or loss, but when it becomes longer lasting and/or compulsive then this can be considered disordered eating. It is important to note that anyone who experiences binge eating should try to limit their intake while simultaneously seeking help if necessary.
There are many ways to manage binge eating, so don’t worry about what type of diet plan is “best.
